Her parents had been removed from their native village of Katyr-Yurt, Chechnya in February 1944 as a result of the forced deportations of most Chechens to Central Asia.

Liza attended the Yaroslavl Drama Institute, where she developed a solid reputation for her emotive singing, yet declined a musical career upon graduation to get married, and shortly afterwards became the mother of three children.

In Moscow she opened up a small business called 'Vaynaham', which sold Chechen and Ingush literature and audio recordings.

In 1998 Liza made her first recording with the song "Motherland", which set words about Chechnya to the tune of "Liberta", a 1980s hit by Italian pop duo Al Bano and Romina Power.

Umarova and her son sustained numerous contusions in the attack but initially decided against reporting the incident to the police.

[5] Umarova is not a Chechen nationalist and said she was ashamed for her country, Russia, over this kind of bigotry and over the continuing brutal war.